Interesting Projects and Interesting Adventures

There are lots of new things I wanted to share with you all…

New Work up and New Type

Check out my “work” section to see a few new and not so new projects that are now featured. I completely revamped my work section to show larger site shots and to be less reliant on images. While I love image replacement for text because it allows for such wonderful control across all browsers, it also is a real pain in the ass to update, so I went in and made some changes so that a quick site update would not be a huge time commitment.

The most recent addition to my portfolio is the National Basketball Players Association website that was completed as a member of the team at Phase2 Technology. It was a real pleasure working with my (relatively) new colleagues at Phase2, I got the chance to really dig in and find out how completely badass they really are. My role on the project consisted of visual design and HTML + CSS, the site runs on Drupal and is currently maintained by the clients’s internal designer and content team. Overall it was an amazing experience which I hope to possibly detail in a future blog post.

You will also notice that the dynamic type on this site has changed from Georgia and some Baskerville to Legitima being served up beautifully by Typekit. A few folks have pointed out to me that the body copy is a nightmare to read in the Windows operating system where ClearType is turned off, and that is exactly the kind of feedback I am looking for! My site was originally designed to work with Georgia for the body copy but I have really wanted to give font-as-service a whirl, mostly because I see a huge opportunity to use it with many of my clients. I need to get a pretty intense test drive in with some of these services before offering it as a real option for a client. Legitima is a digital revival of a typeface used in 1664, and has some lovely imperfections that brings an offline quality to my online site. I am looking to continuously experiment with Typekit and other online type services so be prepared to be my guinea pigs! With that… send the feedback my way!

Rivah City

This past weekend I had a fantastic opportunity to judge the Richmond Ad Club Show back on my hometown nestled smack dab in the heart of Virginia. How do I feel about competitions? Check out my response to that question here. Overall, the Richmond show judging was a first class operation, the design work was engaging, the hospitality was warm, and the folks I met left me inspired. The experience far exceeded my expectations and I tip my hat to the generous folks who worked so hard to make it that way. Judging a competition is really intense and intriguing experience, and in this situation I learned a lot from the other judges who all specialized in fields other than web design. Big ups to Tyler Hattery and Josh Leutz, who may have forever changed the way I view broadcast advertising.

I especially want to throw a shout out to Aaron Draplin, an enthusiastic designer and entrepreneur from Portland who inspired me more than he may ever realize. He’s the Field Notes guy… yeah… he made those. He’s also the “Why America is F*ed” guy… and if you think he’s passionate in that video, you should just meet him him person.

Aaron reminded me that I should really find more time to make things. Badass things. SO with that… I am starting my own personal little design resolution: I am going to make things more. But not until after…

SXSW

I am really excited to be giving a solo typography presentation as part of the Design Workshop this year at SXSW. I am humbled to be amongst some incredibly talented folks participating in the workshop, and I sort of think we have an awesome SXSW website designed by Jason Beaird. I will be giving an inspirational design-oriented talk on Typography. We won’t get too deep in the technical details and I am not going to talk about legal issues or the future of the font industry… its about the amazing opportunity that we as designers have in front of us… and how we should seize it, grab it by the horns, and make some kick ass web designs. If you will be attending SXSW, please consider stopping by and saying hello.. hell, lets exchange cards. My preso is smack between two other amazing talks by Cennydd Bowles and Matthew Smith, so really there is no excuse… get warm and cozy in Ballroom E… grab some friends, bring your laptop and get ready for a solid series of design presentations.. for designers by designers at the best little interactive conference in the world.